158 killed in India crash

An Air India Express plane overshot a runway and crashed in flames yesterday in southern India, killing 158 people as a handful of survivors managed to scramble from the burning wreckage.

Officials said the Boeing 737-800, carrying 160 passengers and six crew on a flight from Dubai, careered off the end of the 'table-top' runway at Bajpe airport and plunged into a forested gorge where it was engulfed in flames.

Survivors described hearing a loud thud shortly after touchdown and said the main fuselage broke into two before filling with fire and thick smoke.

The accident occurred shortly after 5 a.m. Bajpe airport serves the port city of Mangalore, about 20 kilometres away and around 320 kilometres west of the Karnataka state capital Bangalore.

Officials described the landing conditions as fair with good visibility and said there had been no distress call from the cockpit.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who flew to the crash site, said eight passengers had survived. Three of them were in serious condition, while four were being treated for minor injuries and one escaped totally unscathed. A young boy who pulled alive from the wreckage died on the way to hospital.

It was India's worst aviation disaster since 1996 when two passenger planes collided in mid-air near New Delhi with the loss of all 349 on board both flights.

One survivor, Umer Farooq, told the NDTV news channel from his hospital bed that he had heard a bang as the plane touched down.

"The plane veered off toward some trees on the side and then the cabin filled with smoke. I got caught in some cables but managed to scramble out," said Farooq, who suffered burns to his arms, legs and face.

Television images from the immediate aftermath of the crash showed smoke billowing from the fuselage, as emergency crews, who had struggled down steep, wooded slopes to reach the aircraft, sought to douse the fire with foam.

Hours later, rescue workers were still pulling blackened bodies - some of them still strapped upright into their seats - from the remains of the burned-out fuselage.

"The preliminary observation is that the aircraft touched down and did not contain itself within the runway space," Patel told reporters.

He described the chief pilot, a Serbian national, as a "very experienced" flier who had logged 10,000 hours of flying time.

Stressing that it was "too early" to determine the precise cause of the crash, Patel noted that the sanded safety area surrounding the runway in the event of an overshoot was shorter than at some airports.